The Real Dirt on Antibacterial Soaps

From an email sent in by Dr Frank Lipman

When I was growing up, we played outside, got our hands dirty, and washed up when we got home. Getting clean was a low-tech affair involving basic soap, hot water, and a good scrub.

By the late 1980s, though, “dirt” became a dirty word and the personal-care industry developed antibacterial hand soaps, foams, and potions to “protect” us from germs.

Even worse? Most antibacterial soaps contain chemicals like triclosan, a toxic ingredient that is not only linked with hormone disruption, muscle weakness, allergies and liver cancer, but is a contributing factor in the rising tide of antibiotic resistance.

Although the FDA recently banned the use of triclosan (and its cousin, triclocarban) in hand soaps and body washes, it still lurks in many personal care products that we use everyday. Hopefully, in the next few years triclosan use will be phased out of consumer products altogether, but until then, you’ll need to be the enforcer.

Click here for a few tips on how you can avoid triclosan in its many guises — and still be a clean machine!